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Fly the Unfriendly Skies
United Airlines has a PR nightmare on its hands as a disturbing video burned up the Internet. After overbooking the flight from Chicago to Louisville, the crew chose four passengers at random to leave the flight. Passenger number three was a doctor who said he needed to treat patients in the morning, so refused to leave. The flight crew called security, which forcibly yanked him out of his seat and dragged him down the aisle.
This being 2017, several passengers recorded the whole thing on their smartphones:
@united @FoxNews @CNN not a good way to treat a Doctor trying to get to work because they overbooked pic.twitter.com/sj9oHk94Ik
— Tyler Bridges (@Tyler_Bridges) April 9, 2017
Airline staff first tried a carrot before using a stick. Before boarding, they offered passengers $400 and a hotel stay to give up their seats. Once boarded, they doubled it to $800 and said the flight wouldn’t leave until four people were gone. When no one volunteered, a computer selected four passengers at random.
With condemnation raining down on the airline, United’s CEO issued a statement:
Using the term “re-accommodate” to describe forcibly dragging a customer off a plane only fueled the online firestorm.
How should United have reacted in this situation and what can they do to fix it?
Published in Culture
You got “United said he had the right to keep his seat” from standard PR boilerplate like “No one should ever be mistreated this way”?
Nobody needed to come off the plane, there were adequate seats for the boarded passengers. United elected to eject 4 boarded passengers as their way of dealing with their own piss-poor management of crews. United may have been within their legal rights to do what they did, a thing being legal does not make it right, nor does it mean that the public has no right to express their opprobrium at the fools who hide behind the law.
I saw a funny tweet today:
Pepsi: man this is the worst PR disaster of the year!
United: hold my beer…
And Delta’s second big crash of the year gets missed. They should send a thank you note to United
But the Islamists are probably super frustrated that they set off bombs in Christian churches in Egypt on Palm Sunday, but America is more interested in talking about someone getting bumped from a flight to notice. Every single radio program I listened to on the way home were talking about this (and I kept changing the station to find something else). Interesting that most were not going easy on the good ole doctor. Surprised me.
Hey USA today is compiling information too
Here are the major airlines in the report, listed by rates of involuntary denied boardings per 10,000 passengers last year:
Here is a concerning thought: If a young black male refused to comply with law enforcement and was injured in the ensuing scuffle, we’d blame him and say that it was his fault, he should have complied, and perhaps hired representation later if he was wronged.
If an aging Asian doctor with anger issues refuses to follow instructions from law enforcement – he was right to resist! Any one would do the same!
Uneven application of standards?
lol you would blame him maybe, but I’d say he’s just as entitled to a seat on the plane once he got his boarding pass. Just like anybody else with a boarding pass and who hadn’t violated any regulations. I’m glad he made a fuss!
It is funny though, they picked the 69 year old guy to drag down the aisle.
Do you have video of just such a situation?
If not, please do not project your racism on to the rest of us.
Thank you
An interesting example of applied psychology:
Scott Adams was asked how he would respond. Trimming greatly:
He also pointed out the foolishness of selecting senior citizens to toss off the plane.
Excuse me, but I’m the one saying people should follow instructions from police, and lawyer up later if necessary. People here are cheering him on.
Then say that. There is no need to inject race into this situation.
The thugs on the video are not readily identifiable to me as police. Plumber’s crack notwithstanding.
Well, the doctor’s very interesting criminal past and strange behavior aside, here’s an interesting article in The Federalist that points out that United may have violated some of the terms of its own Contract of Carriage agreement. Some fancy pants, tassel-loafered lawyer may have fun dissecting this before a judge and jury.
Are we having fun yet?
The article raises the very issues I mentioned in #147. Except that Sean Davis took the time to research the answers.
This was not a denied boarding. He already boarded and the dragged him out. Do you have statistics on that. It’s going to be a lot closer to 0.
Moderator Note:
Reaches a conclusion which is in no way implied by the original comment.Just because you’re racist against Asians doesn’t mean the rest of us will be racist against blacks.
The boarding process is the entire process – ending in the closing of the airplane door (according to a flight attendant (not united) friend of mind.
Yeah – but that’s like using legal jargon as a defense for being a mean-spirited jerk. To the passenger, “boarding” is getting on the plane and taking a seat. This whole mess is about a PR disaster, regardless the legal and technical definitions.
Look, I think United will pay dearly, and deservedly so, and hopefully change their policies because they suck. If they’re going to overbook, they need to offer real cash incentives so people volunteer to get off and feel they got a good deal for their trouble.
I just cannot support this man’s behavior – I think he’s an idiot and I’m concerned that he’ll embolden others to be defiant during the ‘boarding process’ when they don’t like what’s happening, and make the whole process harder for the other people (specifically me).
If I were the Queen, I’d fine United and use the money to pay this guy’s actual losses (bills and loss of income, etc – no ”pain and suffering’ because he made a choice to refuse to follow police’s instructions) and the send the rest of the money on to some charity that helps kids.
But aren’t you doing the same thing here, in this case narrowly defining a term – “boarding is over when your fanny is in the seat” to support your view? Airlines board people everyday – so they would, of course, have a defined meaning for the term.
And yes, its a disaster. Let’s hope the flying experience improves because of it! I’m no fan of the airlines. I just have to use their services a lot – I want improvement, not amped up chaos as people start daring airlines to ‘make them’ do something they don’t want to do. I don’t approve rewarding defiance. This man behaved like a child, and people are getting behind him because they hate the airlines. Is it possible that ALL parties here were in the wrong? (including the police guy who was reportedly taken off duty for his poor choices?)
I just repeated her own accusation back at her. Why does the original stand?
Yes, I sure did.
And other comments.
On the other hand, you’re getting “the airline can do whatever they want” from… well, not much, actually.
That’s nice. “The boarding process” is a whole different thing than “he had already boarded.”
On the other hand, United has also admitted that the boarding process was over, and that they were in the wrong about that, too.
You know, that whole “we’re going to change the meaning of language to make things easier for our procedures” thing is pretty much starting to go away now. “Boarded,” in this case, means “got on board the plane.” It doesn’t, in real life, mean “he got on board the plane and sat down, but we changed our minds because it could cost us some money.”
No, the airlines warping common usage doesn’t mean we have to go along with it.
They can “define” it any way they want, but in this case it’s not so much “narrowly” defining as “accurately” defining. They could redefine “boarding” as “boarding the jetway at the other end of the flight,” but that doesn’t mean we have to go along with it.
Oscar Munoz in an interview with ABC:
Interviewer: Was the doctor at fault at all?
Munoz: No, not in any way.
Not really – or at least that wasn’t my intent. I’m was simply observing the reality that millions of passengers believe that “boarding the plane” means getting on the plane and taking the seat. That’s the functioning, everyday definition to just about everybody who doesn’t work for an airline. And in the end – the legal definition is small comfort against the hailstorm of bad PR that has fittingly befallen United.
And BTW – I totally agree with you that this particular passenger behaved badly. And I agree with your concerns that his behavior may encourage other bad actors. It all stinks. Flying, in general, stinks these days. That’s why I choose to drive anywhere within an 8-hour distance from where I am, rather than fly.
I think that United is correct in the strict legal definition, but that somehow it strikes people as unjust despite the legality.
Same as Whitewater… totally legal because people signed the agreement, but it seems so unjust that one late payment converts your house payments into rental payments.
Without his behavior and that of United (as well as the people recording the incident), United would have kept doing their illegal behavior.
I applaud him (with a golf clap) for taking one for the team.
“Celebrating” Orientalism, Richard Landes’ recent Middle East Forum piece on Edward Said’s impact on academia and policymaking, is pertinent to this discussion:
If you haven’t read this, please do so: http://www.newsweek.com/why-united-were-legally-wrong-deplane-dr-dao-583535